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Author and former journalist Sara Solovitch poses in her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Friday, June 5, 2015. Solovitch has a new book, "Playing Scared," which recounts how she overcame her terror of playing in front of an audience and finally gave a piano concert in public. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)

Author and former journalist Sara Solovitch plays piano in her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., Friday, June 5, 2015. Solovitch has a new book, "Playing Scared," which recounts how she overcame her terror of playing in front of an audience and finally gave a piano concert in public. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)

For Sara Solovitch, the symptoms of stage fright were as familiar as the keyboard on her beloved piano.

The Santa Cruz author, who once dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, was struck with performance anxiety so severe she nearly gave up playing altogether.

But Solovitch decided to face down the fear. In her new book, “Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright” (Bloomsbury, $26, 288 pages), she documents her struggle to uncover the roots of those symptoms — the panic, the shaking hands, the feeling of utter mortification — and conquer them once and for all.

In a recent interview, Solovitch, a former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, said she spent three years researching and writing the book, all the while preparing for the kind of solo recital that once would have left her quaking in a corner.

Solovitch’s musical talent emerged in childhood. At 10, she was whizzing through scores by Bach and Mozart; as a teen, she attended the Eastman School of Music. She remembers the pleasure of learning new works by Bach, still the composer she loves above all others.

But she also remembers the terror that struck her in recitals. In her late teens, it became so severe that she quit performing.

Music continued to play a role in her life — she and husband Richard Scheinin, a staff writer at this newspaper, are lifelong jazz lovers. Their three sons studied music, and Solovitch often accompanied them as they learned new works.

Playing in public, however, was out of the question. Although Solovitch never completely abandoned her instrument, she mostly played in secret. The thought of an audience, she says, was just too frightening.

One night at a party, the situation reached a tipping point. Solovitch was having a good time — until someone who knew she was a pianist asked her to play.

“It was horrifying,” she said. “It felt like I’d been asked to take my clothes off. I just couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I had to keep refusing. It became really embarrassing.” Later, she says, “I realized that this had become a real problem for me. It felt like the kind of thing you don’t want to go to your death with. It was something I just had to conquer.”

Determined to overcome her fear, Solovitch set a one-year deadline to play for an audience. She resumed piano lessons. At the same time, she began interviewing experts — psychologists, coaches, professional musicians — to learn more about stage fright.

She learned she wasn’t alone. Nearly 3 in every 4 Americans fear public speaking and performance; many, including Solovitch, trace the issue to childhood. “My mother was the audience I always played to as a child,” she said. “She loved hearing me play, but she also had very high expectations for how I would do. And it was not very often quite good enough.”

If Solovitch came to the subject with the desperation of the afflicted, she studied the problem with the thoroughness of an investigative reporter. “Playing Scared” follows her explorations into meditation, psychoanalysis, exposure therapy, biofeedback and beta blockers.

Eventually, she started leaving the house to play.

A breakthrough came at Mineta San Jose International Airport. In the baggage claim area, Solovitch started giving pop-up performances on the airport’s grand piano. The noise and bustle of the space made her feel safe. “It was very freeing,” she said.

Another milestone came when she realized that making mistakes was part of performing.

“When I was playing, I tried to imagine that I was on a river,” she said. “If I bounced going over a little rapid, I instantly forgave myself and moved on. That was an important part of it for me — just to accept that I wasn’t perfect, to go for excellence rather than perfection. My whole relationship with music changed during that time.”

Finally, Solovitch faced the supreme test. In 2013 — the day before her 60th birthday — she rented a church hall, invited 50 guests and played a recital. There was more than an hour of music on the program.

She sailed through it.

“I knew that I hadn’t become this great pianist,” she said. “But I felt I was communicating. I just wanted to reach out and affect people, to share this beautiful music that I love. And I think I did that.” Solovitch wrote “Playing Scared” for herself. But she hopes that readers will find inspiration in it.

“To really try to change yourself is such an enormous task,” she said. “But in some ways, it’s so simple. It’s just a matter of doing it. You start chipping away at it, one little piece at a time.

“Of course, you always remember the failures. They don’t disappear, but those new memories start to solidify under your feet. And they allow you to continue.”

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